


Unstoppable Forces & Immovable Objects

by Ultra



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Banter, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Civil War Team Iron Man, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Protective Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 19:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13958886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: During Captain America: Civil War - after Tony's fight with Steve & Bucky, somebody has to go pick up the pieces. That person is Natasha.





	Unstoppable Forces & Immovable Objects

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



It wasn’t supposed to go down like this, but then Natasha had learnt a long time ago that things rarely went how they were supposed to, not even when you planned them well. Lately, there was less of a plan, more fire-fighting, just trying to keep everyone alive. Switching sides was her forte, she was used to it, but this time she might’ve gone a step too far.

This wouldn’t make up for what she had done and she knew it, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. You stop trying, you stop surviving, and that just wasn’t in Natasha’s nature. Thankfully, it wasn’t in his either.

“Tony?” she said, checking him over as best she could.

His eyes flickered open, gazing up into her own, and she saw that he was broken. It wasn’t about the suit. Twisted metal could be repaired, rebuilt. She had seen it done before a hundred times and hoped to live to see it a hundred more. No, this was different. This was worse than when he returned from the void, battered and traumatised. Tony was truly broken down inside, heart and soul. The body would heal, but these kinds of wounds, the kind that came from having those you loved most turn on you, they scarred over, they often never truly healed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice a croaking mess of its former self.

“Somebody had to pick your ass up and take you home,” she told him, with just a hint of the smirk they often both wore so well. “Come on.”

Putting in most of the effort on his behalf, Nat got Tony to his feet. The suit was potentially irreparable, plates hanging off, a large gouge across the chest that could only have been caused by one thing. It was only now she had him upright that she realised he hadn’t been the only thing lying beaten and scarred on the concrete floor.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” she said more to herself than to Tony.

His gaze swept over the shield lying off to the side and he took in a shaky breath.

“It doesn’t belong to him,” he said hoarsely. “It never did.”

“Well, we both know that’s not true,” said Nat, moving to prop him against a wall before retrieving the shield from the ground. “Let’s get out of here.”

She put her shoulder back under his and walked him painfully to the jet. It was a long, laborious, limping journey in which neither of them spoke at all. After all, what could either one say after what had happened? Neither were the type to apologise and comfort couldn’t be tolerated in a moment like this. They did what they always did, they just kept going.

When finally, they reached their destination, Nat set Tony down as gently as she could, propping the shield by the wall. She ensured both were secured and then headed to the cockpit. She had to check they could still make an exit before anything else happened. She would fly them out to a safe place and then tend to Tony’s injuries, both physical and otherwise. He was a real mess, worse than she ever suspected. The blood and such she could handle, but that look in his eyes. She had never seen anything like it, not even in her own reflection in the mirror.

Swallowing hard, she went over the instruments, wondering at the single drop of water that splashed onto the glass of the nearest dial. Wiping the back of her hand across her face, Nat steeled herself against whatever came next. There was no time to allow herself even a moment’s emotion, not now.

Concentrating on the matter at hand, she took them out of there, quick, stealthy. There were no better words to describe Black Widow, except perhaps for lethal. Strange then that it was the rest of her fractured team that had caused most of the damage. This was one fight she would have happily steered well clear of, her allegiance more divided than it had ever been. Maybe that had always been her problem. She thought she had solved it more recently. Apparently, the wheel of fate wasn’t quite done spinning her around yet.

When the jet was landed, Nat went back to check on Tony again. Perhaps the most concerning thing was that he hadn’t moved at all. Just because you put Tony Stark somewhere, even if you told him to stay put, he really wasn’t much for the rules. His truly broken state was proven one more time by his complete lack of motion, the pain in his eyes as she crouched before him, it was enough to pierce the centre of even the hardest heart and soul. Of course, Nat always knew he was capable of it, long before.

“Tony...”

“Do you know what he did?”

The words came out faster and harder than bullets, those that Nat couldn’t dodge or deflect. Though all her training had taught her so well to lie, to not feel, so much had been undone of late. Tony was one of the chief dismantling parties when it came to her former skills in hiding and shutting down. The slightest hint of emotion must have shown on her face because he knew the answer before she ever spoken.

“Tony,” she began again. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling. To lose family... it’s not something I have the capacity to understand. It was removed a long time ago, outside of my memory,” she said glancing away to conceal the only half-truth she was allowing herself today. “But I do know that blaming Barnes won’t help you.”

She had his full attention now, glowering and angry as it was. She didn’t flinch. Nat almost never did.

“We come from the same place, him and I,” she explained. “More or less, anyway. You know some of the worst things I’ve done but you’re willing to stand at my side.”

“You didn’t kill my parents.”

“I killed other people’s parents,” she reminded him, “and I knew what I was doing. Barnes was... programmed. He was used. He might as well be a piece of your tech with coordinates and instructions hard-wired in. He remembers, but he had no control.”

“And that makes it okay?” Tony sneered, looking like he wanted to get up and walk away from her, but stuck to the spot by too many other factors right now, not least her eyes on his and her hand gripping his own. “It doesn’t.”

“It can’t. Nothing can,” Nat agreed, “but giving in to hate and anger, I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work and... and it’s not you.”

She needed him to come back to her, through the pain and anguish that she could never fully appreciate. Sure, Nat had suffered trauma. The supposed loss of Fury almost broke her. Memories of the Red Room haunted her too often. Banner leaving, it burned. Still, she had Tony, if she could just bring him back from the brink. Only losing him completely would mean she had nothing, no hope, no way through.

Nat wasn’t sure which part of what she said had got through the him, but something started to shift in his eyes, in his grip on her hand. It wasn’t this easy, he wasn’t over it yet, that would take a long time, but she was getting through. He saw through the dark fog of anger and pain that had enveloped him during his fight with Rogers and Barnes, more so after as he lay in pain and misery, alone. He wasn’t alone anymore, that was all she needed him to see for now.

“Come on, we need to check you over,” she said then, focusing on the practicalities now she was sure she hadn’t completely lost him in some worse way.

“How long have you been waiting to get me out of my clothes, Widow?” he asked her, and somehow, he was Stark again, at least a close approximation.

“The truth?” she said, disentailing the safety belt and helping him to his feet. “Part of me has been pondering the idea since the first day we met,” she admitted, wearing a smirk he ought to have been proud of.

“Sweetheart, you only ever had to ask,” he told her, returning the look. “Seriously.”

“Seriously? You couldn’t have handled it back then,” she told him, shaking her head. “And you definitely couldn’t handle anything now,” she said, wincing a little on his behalf as she started to removed his armour, realising quite how badly he really was hurt underneath. “But hey, wounds heal,” she told herself as much as him.

“With a little help, sure,” said Tony, his hand on her shoulder.

Whether it was to steady himself or to get her attention, Nat couldn’t be sure, at least not until she met his eyes one more time. People like them, they had to have each other’s back, had to learn to trust even when there were good reasons not to. They had been together from before the beginning, at least in terms of the Avengers, and they would be together yet. That was a vow, a promise, an absolute. The words were never spoken, but the look they shared said it all.


End file.
